Of Psychics & Psychos
by The Real JosephineSilver
Summary: Annabeth Chase has always known things she shouldn't - not because she's an eavesdropper or a spy - but because she is psychic, like her mother before her. Recruited to take part in a special Training and Study program, she is relocated to New York. While there, dark secrets come to light and horrible truths are revealed about the nature and origin of her powers.


title: of psychics and psychos

summary: Annabeth Chase has always known things she shouldn't - not because she's an eavesdropper or a spy - but because she is psychic, like her mother before her. Recruited to take part in a special Training and Study program, she is relocated to New York. While there, dark secrets come to light and horrible truths are revealed about the nature and origin of her powers.

notes: ugh i suck at summaries. also at titles. and the ending to this is unbelievably cheesy. this is just an experiment to get be back into the pjo fandom/fanfiction mood and I'll probably never continue it. happy belated new year and welcome to 2015 everybody. what even is my life.

[:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::]

_innocence_

[-O-]

The girl had a steaming hot coffee in front of her, but she'd much rather a stronger, preferably alcoholic, drink, even though it wasn't even ten in the morning yet.

This would've been obvious to most people in the cafe, but what really stuck out to Annabeth Chase was the reason why this girl wanted a drink – a _vodka _– so badly.

She'd had a bad night's sleep – nightmares that had seemed so vivid that they made the real world look fake.

How did Annabeth know this?

Was she friends with the girl? Had she eavesdropped on a conversation? Facebook stalker?

_No_.

Annabeth Chase was a psychic.

[X]

Annabeth sighed and rubbed her temples as the noise of the cafe reached an all-time high – a group of girls, probably the same age as her, though it was appalling to think of girls her age acting like that – had just walked in and were shrieking like a flock of galahs.

_My cue_, she thought, and threw money down on her table, tipping twenty per cent.

As she walked out of the boothed area and past the group of girls – they were guarding the only entrance-slash-exit with their lives – one of them looped an arm into hers.

Her skin tingled in a way it only had a few times before – whenever she had been held by her mother.

_Holy crap_. This girl, this primadonna, was like her.

_Psychic_.

She jerked her head sharply, to meet a pair of kaleidoscope-coloured eyes.

"Piper," the girl introduced herself, steering Annabeth through the crowd and out of the door.

"Hi," she said. "I'm - "

"Annabeth, I know."

Annabeth narrowed her green eyes at the pretty native girl.

_Cherokee_, her sixth sense spoke up. An ache began to grow in the back of her head, a longing to use the full brunt of her powers on this girl and see which mind came out on top. Which one of them was the strongest?

"And exactly _how_ do you know?"

Piper smiled brightly, revealing brilliant white teeth. She reached into her giant purse – god, was that Gucci? – and pulled out a manila folder, filled to the bursting point with papers. "I've read your files," she said airily, fanning herself with said files.

For the second time that morning, Annabeth narrowed her eyes. The ache throbbed once again, practically begging to be used.

_Fine_, she thought_. You know everything about me? Two can play at that game. _

She closed her eyes for just a second to centre herself, and as she snapped them open, she focused on Piper's face, feeling the different layers that were invisible to normal people flood into her mind, almost overloading her with data.

Piper simply smiled knowingly and stilled, right in the middle of the sidewalk, as if waiting to see how well Annabeth did.

As if this was a test.

Her psychic power now fully activated, Annabeth was in the zone.

"Piper McLean," she spoke in a dull monotone. "Age fifteen. You turn sixteen in two months, four days. Your dad is an actor, your mother abandoned you when you were a child. You used to have a pet turtle named Mikey, after your favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Back when you were four years old, whenever your dad introduced you as Piper, you would interrupt and insist, 'no, I'm Batman.'" She blinked as she came out of it, feeling slightly dirty and contaminated.

She hadn't revealed anything bad, but she hated using her power for petty reasons - or, at all, really.

But Piper grinned, like she had finally succeeded in doing something interesting.

"Thank god," she said. "I thought you were going to be a complete waste of time."

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Ouch," she said.

Piper rolled her eyes. "Oh, please," she said, as she held out a small square of white card.

On it was printed, in simple black text, an email address.

Piper smiled. "You want to know more about your gifts?" she said. "Want to do more with them?"

Annabeth remained stoic and silent.

Piper's smile didn't dim in the slightest. "Just send an email to that address when you've made the right decision," she said.

She leant in close and whispered in Annabeth's ear, "You never saw me. You never learnt any of those things about me. And we did not have a discussion about how you're psychic." She moved back and smiled. The blue-grey colours in her eyes were whirling, faster and faster. "Sorry, Annabeth," she whispered.

For just a minute, the world went dark.

[X]

Annabeth blinked.

She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, and as people jostled past her, they shot her dirty looks, like, _move, you idiot. _

She blinked once again and back up unsteadily, completely disoriented.

Where the hell was she, and how had she gotten here?

A sharp corner of..._something_, stabbed her palm.

She opened up her clenched hand, and tilted her head slightly as she saw the business card that was there.

She turned it over in her hands, but the only thing on it was an email address – and the address was pretty generic.

She was about to put the card straight into the trash, where it belonged, when a feeling hit her. One of her premonitions.

Following her intuition, she tucked the card into her jeans pocket.

With a sigh, she began to make her way down the street, to her high school.

[:::::::::]

Piper smiled brightly as she entered the van. "Thank you, Travis," she said.

The boy whom had pulled open the van door – Travis – gave her a goofy smile.

"You're pretty," he whispered to her, as if confiding some great secret. He then giggled.

The van's driver, Chiron, turned and scowled over his shoulder at Piper. "You're not meant to use your powers on each other, young lady," he said.

Piper turned her smile on him. "But we're meant to be strengthening our gifts, right? What better way to do that then to test it on one of the strongest minds out there?"

Chiron's scowl didn't lessen in the slightest – he appeared to be immune to Piper's charms. "Charmspeak is not a gift you should use so freely," he said. "Especially not against your brethren."

Piper pouted as she strapped herself in. "I'm not allowed to use Charmspeak on regular people, I'm not allowed to use it on psychics..." she sighed. "Just what am I allowed to use it on?"

"Plants," Chiron answered grimly, pulling out of his parking space and taking the turnoff to the highway.

[:::::::::]

Nothing like a blunt object to the head to capture your attention.

Annabeth sent a scowl in the direction of her friends – god, had they thrown a shoe at her?

She stalked over to them, the intent to kill clear in her eyes.

All of them backed away, except for Helena, the redheaded, blue eyed, minx of the group, who grinned at her unrepentantly. "I'd like my shoe back," she said.

Annabeth growled, but refrained from snapping at Hel, because her father had gone to the hospital last night – lung cancer, final stages.

She tried not to think on the fact that the psychic voice in the back of her head insisted that Aaron Darling would not live to see tomorrow morning.

Cassandra – a shy girl of fourteen, with blonde hair in a pixie cut and anime-wide blue eyes, who had skipped ahead a few grades – peeked at the brunette, giving her a sheepish smile. "You just seemed kinda out of it, 'Beth," she offered.

Annabeth swallowed bile at the sound of the hated pet name. "How so?" she questioned.

Hel grinned. "For one, you're not in uniform."

She froze, green eyes widening as she looked down and yes, that was not school uniform and holy crap she was going to be murdered - .

Something warm and soft hit her in the face. Cussing under her breath, Annabeth yanked it off, and saw, in her arms, Helena's school sweater.

She raised an eyebrow at the redhead, who shrugged. "Faculty can't really yell at you for being in non-regulation clothes if you're wearing a regulation sweater to cover them," she said. "And I'm wearing an actual school shirt – " she gestured at the bleached white, stiff button up that had the school crest on the left breast with distaste. " – so they can't really yell at me, either," she finished with a smile.

Annabeth's heart sank. "Hel – "

The bell rang, loud and shrill, cutting her off.

"Homeroom," Alisha, the fourth and final member of their group – a girl of oriental descent, with stunning olive skin and gorgeous black hair and eyes – stated, rather unnecessarily, in Annabeth's personal opinion.

"Yep," Hel agreed, pulling an elastic band from her pocket and yanking her hair back before tying it off roughly.

Ali looked appalled. Seeing her opening her mouth – no doubt to give Helena a twenty minute lecture on the evils of elastic bands when coupled with hair – Annabeth intervened.

"Don't want to be late," she insisted with false cheer.

Cass agreed happily, and Helena rolled her eyes. Ali's sour look said she knew exactly what Annabeth had been up to.

She shrugged, unrepentant.

[X]

It was only the first class of the day, and Annabeth was already languishing in agony.

Her teacher – Ms. McCormack – wasn't doing much better. Like Annabeth, she'd much rather be at home. Except, where Annabeth envisioned Gilmore Girls re-runs and hot chocolate while she sketched out the designs for the rafters of an architecture project she was working on, the elderly teacher wanted to do some very bizarre things to her husband.

There were times in which Annabeth truly was glad she was psychic.

This was not one of them.

She sighed as she swung in her computer chair. If she was at home, she'd be sick from dizziness by now; her dad always let her spin on his chair.

You're never too old to do these stupid things, he said, when she protested that she was too old to play chair-jousts with him.

When Ms McCormack cleared her throat pointedly – hmm hmm – and shot Annabeth a reproachful look, she attempted to get drawn back into the wondrous world of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy.

Another defining aspect of her personality – Annabeth was severely ADHD.

Her father had her taken to multiple doctors and so called 'experts' about it when she was younger, but her mother had just sighed and smiled and looked her in the eyes – so similar to her own – and said, 'it's because you see things that others don't. They distract you, and it messes with your attention span, because you get so drawn into whatever is going on with someone else.' Then, she'd give Annabeth an Eskimo kiss and whisper in her ear, 'exercise control.'

Of course, then Anthea 'Athena' Chase had gone and gotten herself killed – one of her customers hadn't been happy with the reading she'd given him, and pulled a gun on her – two bullets to the chest (one for each lung), and one to the head (straight through her corpus callosum ).

Annabeth had been the one to find the body.

She and her father had gone to pick her mother up at five, like they did each evening, but Anthea wasn't waiting for them outside, and she didn't come out. Frowning, Frederic had instructed to his daughter to stay in the car as he unstrapped himself and made his own way to the front entrance of the theatre where her mother worked.

Annabeth was smart for her age – she had to be. She knew that her mother usually used the front entrance, she was a creature of habit, and that's why her father had headed for those double doors.

But she also knew, both because of her sixth sense and cool logic, that her mother would've used the back doors today, because of the size of the crowds and the horrid weather.

So, once her father was out of sight, Annabeth did what any clever seven-year-old would do, and slid out of the car, wanting to find her mummy first, turning it into a game, as children are wont to do.

She snuck into the theatre through the back, giving a smile to one of the workers, who knew her because she was always running around during her mother's 'open' shows.

"She's in her dressing room," he said.

Annabeth skipped down to hall till she reached her mother's door, and was confused when she saw how busted up the lock was.

Giving the door a light push, it swung open easily, revealing darkness that was blacker and more absolute than night.

Hadn't the worker said she was in here? Why would she sit in the dark?

Scared now – her sixth sense was screaming at her – Annabeth took one small, hesitant step inside.

A smell like the taste of coins hit her. It was thick and metallic and it made it hard to breathe and she was hyperventilating now because she knew what it was, it was blood and oh god why was there blood and where was her mummy and –.

She reached up, and flicked on the light.

The workers ran when they heard the screams.

She was still screaming ten minutes later when her dad turned up.

[X]

For the second time that day, Annabeth snapped back to attention when something hit her on the head.

This was just a balled up piece of note paper, and not one of Hel's dirty sneakers, though.

And thank god for that.

She un-balled the note under the desk, while keeping her eyes on her computer screen and her movements minimal, so as not to draw too much attention.

Once it was flat in her hands, Annabeth pulled it out from underneath the table and read it with squinting eyes.

DO YOUR WORK!

- Loves, Hel. xxx

She snorted, and flipped Hel the bird over her shoulder without looking.

A gasping sound of mock offense drifted back to her, and she grinned, before slumping down in her seat as she realised that Hel was right – she needed to stop getting distracted and do her work.

She double-clicked on the Internet Explorer logo – yes, her school was that far behind the times – and opened up Hotmail in one tab, Google in another.

Before doing anything serious, Annabeth logged onto her email, and cleaned out her inbox, full of subscription mail and Facebook alerts.

A new message bleeped in, from helgirl118.

Sighing, she opened it.

**YOU'RE STALLING, ANNABETH**.

She promptly deleted this correspondence and made to log out, when a feeling hit her.

The business card began to burn in her pocket.

She slid it out stealthily, taking only one glance at the printed address – theinstitute, at edu dot gov dot com – before she had it memorised.

She typed the address into the bar, and sent out an email that contained no subject line, and only one word.

_Hello_.

[:::::::::]

"Well, that was fast."

Leo swiveled in his chair as he turned to face Piper.

She was leant over the back of his chair, eyes fixated on his computer screen.

"I didn't think she'd reach out so soon," she said, sounding almost disapointed in the girl. "She seemed a lot more suspicious and...guarded, I guess."

Leo raised one eyebrow. "I'd have emailed quicker, if I were her. I hate mysteries."

"I know," Piper said. "You always skip to the end of every book before reading the rest."

He shrugged. "I see no point in postponing the satisfaction of knowledge."

"You just like knowing the ending before the rest of us," Piper corrected. "Shouting out the words 'SPOILER ALERT' gives you some strange sense of gratification."

Leo grinned at her, eyes sparling through his curly, dark hair. "There is that," he agreed.

She shot him a soft smile. "Back to Annabeth," she nudged.

He nodded. "Right." He swiveled back to face his computer screen, and rolled up his sleeves, as if preparing to do something strenuous. "So, what, exactly, am I meant to say?"

[:::::::::]

It was almost two hours later – Annabeth was back in the computer lab, for Studies of Religion & Philosophy this time – when theinstitute finally replied.

She'd been checking her emails almost every ten minutes on her phone since first period English class – and cringing at the amount of cellular data she was surely using – but nothing had come through.

Normally, she would've been perfectly happy to wait, patiently, for it to arrive in her inbox, but some part of her had been as anxious and jumpy as a bunny on steroids since she'd sent it out.

She had just been typing the introduction to a fairly epic essay on the sometimes questionable ethics of the Catholic church when a happy bing! noise blared in her ears – the sound that signaled a new email had arrived in her newly emptied inbox.

Saving her work, she minimized the word document and pulled up her Hotmail tab, clicking on the email, which had a subject line of 'You Have Been Invited.'

**Congratulations! **

**Annabeth Chase, you have been randomly selected from a group of specially gifted students to participate in a nation-wide examination. By the end, ten very special students will have been marked above the rest, and will receive a full scholarship to one of the country's most prestigious academic establishments. **

**Find details attached. If you wish to participate, reply before the end of the week. Parental permission is needed. **

**Hoping to hear from you soon, **

**Chiron Brunner, Professor of Parapsychology, NYU. **

Annabeth blinked, and read it through once again.

Clicking on the attached document, she perused it briefly, seeing a timetable and a permission form that were clearly meant to be printed out, as well as an extended overview of 'Project Olympia's' goals and views for the future.

Oh, god, she thought, as she read through the ambiguously and carefully worded proposal. 'Specially gifted?' this is a program for psychics, no matter how well they've tried to lampshade it, it would be clear to anybody with above average perception.

Her interest further peaked now, she scrolled back up to the top, reading it through more carefully this time.

**We aim to let our students reach their full potential, and then use that potential, for the better of the whole world. **

**Our methods are, at times, seen as 'radical,' but all are completely safe, ethical, and non-mandatory. If, at any moment in time, the students feel uncomfortable, they are free to leave or abstain from that certain round of tests. **

**In return for allowing us to run several tests upon them, we give the students a house to live in, fully paid for and stocked, with both male and female caretakers. The house is within walking distance of the university, local high school, and shopping mall, for the convenience of all involved in the project. Your child, should they be chosen, will receive a full scholarship to the academia of their choice, no matter their level of schooling – high school, college, or university. **

**The program will run for a planned three years, and the students that are chosen can leave at any time. But, if they stay for the entire duration of the program, they will have skills and recommendations that will lead them through any path of life they choose to walk down, as well as a better understanding of themselves and what it means to be 'special.' **

A whole lot more words followed this, separated by headings and sub-headings and sub-sub-headings; rules and regulations and requirements.

Annabeth didn't read these.

She clicked 'save' followed by 'print' and made her way over to the printer, awaiting her documents.

"Miss Chase," Mr. Vincent called out. "What are you doing?"

Annabeth collected her papers and turned around to face her teacher, a brilliant, one-thousand-watt smile gracing the features of her face. "Just printing out a draft of my work, sir," she said.

He nodded at her as she sat down, thinking about how much his job sucked.

[X]

"So, are you going to do it?"

Annabeth blinked blearily at Helena's words.

The red-headed girl had slid into a cafeteria bench across the table from Annabeth, who appeared to have been near sleep before Hel had spoken.

"What?" She asked, before realizing that that was a stupid question – her sixth sense had already given her the answer; Helena had read through her email when she had gone to get the printouts.

Helena grinned sheepishly. "I may or may not have snooped through your inbox and read your private correspondence," she informed Annabeth.

Cassandra flounced excitedly up to their table with Alisha in tow. "Are you going to do it? Are you going to do it?" she asked excitedly, her blue eyes shining with some deep emotion.

Annabeth shot Helena a look.

"I also may or may not have told Cass and Ali about the things I may or may not have read in your private correspondence," she finished lamely.

Annabeth sighed, and slumped back down, burying her head in her hands, shaking her hair over her face so that dark tresses covered her distressed features.

"Hey," Helena's voice was a gentle as the hand she placed on her forearm, a comforting gesture. "It's okay."

"It sounds like it's a big honor to be chosen," Cassandra stated uncertainly.

It was this tone in her voice that made Annabeth look up. Her friend looked near tears, like she regretted saying anything about it.

"Oh, sweetie," she sighed. "It's okay. I'm okay."

Helena smiled and retracted her hand from Annabeth's arm in favor of placing it and the arm it was attached to around Cassandra's shoulders, drawing the waif-like girl into a one-armed hug.

"So," Alisha spoke up. "Are you going to do it?"

Annabeth groaned. "I don't know. I don't even want think about it right now, it's so stressful."

Ali gasped in mock shock-horror. "Imagine that – Annabeth Chase, not wanting to think."

Annabeth gave her a really? look. "Shut up, Alisha," she said. "How am I meant to break this to my father? You guys know how he is."

Her friends winced in sympathetic unison.

"He might be glad," Cass put forward hesitantly. "Because of, you know, the scholarship and stuff. It must be tight at home, what with him paying for the tuition of three kids," she said.

Annabeth tilted her head to the side, considering. "Nice idea," she mused. "Applying pressure to his logical side. It might win out over his paternal instincts."

Helena nodded. "What's good for the goose must be good for the gander."

Alisha peered at Hel from around Cassandra. "I don't think you know what that saying means," she said.

Helena looked affronted. "Sure, I do."

"I really think you don't."

"Guys!" Annabeth interrupted, slamming her hands, palms facing downwards, onto the table. "Focusing, please?"

Cassandra smiled at her. "Sorry, 'Beth," she said to her, even though she hadn't been the one doing anything wrong. "We'll help you now." She cut a surprisingly sharp look in both Ali's and Hel's directions. "Won't we?"

Mumbled agreements came from both other girls, who glared at the floor instead of one another, for fear of gaining either Annabeth's ire or Cassandra's shockingly fearsome wrath.

Annabeth sent a grateful look Cassandra's way. "Thanks, Cass," she said.

Cass shrugged. "You're welcome," she said.

Leaning forwards and putting weight onto her elbows, Annabeth began to address her group. "What we need to convince my dad about this is one of two things," she said. "Either cold, hard facts about this program; or a really, really good cover story."

Alisha squinted. "Since your mum died, your dad's been kind of uptight about the whole psychic thing, hasn't he?" she asked.

Annabeth nodded slowly. "So, what do I tell him?" she threw the question out vaguely.

Helena considered her friend for a moment. "Just twist the truth slightly," she suggested. "You're already an incredibly gifted student; if you were to tell him that it was a Mathlete program or a Young Einstein sort of thing, he would probably jump at the chance to get you shipped off to them."

Ali stiffened at Hel's words, and took in a deep breath, eyes shining. "Psychology," she whispered.

Three questioning looks were sent her way.

"Just edit the email slightly," she said. "Instead of parapsychology…"

It hit Annabeth like a wrecking ball. "That," she informed Ali. "Is true genius, my friend."

Ali shrugged as she grinned, a bashful look gracing her features. "I do try," she said.

[X]

"Dad!" She called out from the entrance way. "I'm home!"

"Your father's still at work, sweetie!" Her step-mother's voice came floating back to her. "Close the door and come into the kitchen, okay?"

Nudging the heavy wood door shut with her toes, Annabeth stumbled slightly as she progressed further down the hallway, kicking her shoes off and yanking off Helena's jumper, making a mental note to return it to her.

She rounded the last turn of the hall and found herself in the kitchen.

Her step-mother, Helen, stood over the stove with a peevish look on her face and scorch marks on her otherwise spotless apron. "The casserole hates me," she declared. "What do you want on your pizza?"

Annabeth smiled at Helen as she turned around to face her. Their relationship had started off rocky, but over the past year they had grown close. She still thought of her as a cool older sister or aunt, not her mother – but Helen was happy to have this pseudo-familial bond over the animosity Annabeth had first professed towards her.

"Hawaiian with olives," she informed her as she wandered over to the cupboards, and pulled out the cookie jar, snatching two chocolate chips from the top.

Helen scrunched up her nose. "That's disgusting, you freak," she said with affection.

She shrugged. "Keeps you lot well away from it."

Helen laughed gently under her breath. "Anything interesting happen during school today?"

Tension became clear in Annabeth's shoulders before she took a deep, low breath and forced her muscles to relax.

Showtime, she thought.

"I got an email from a Prof. of psychology in a university in NYC," she said. "I've been selected to take part in a series of exams for gifted students. Ten of us will get a full scholarship to the school of our choice."

Helen surveyed her stepdaughter, expression unreadable. "You want to tell me the truth, now?" she asked.

Annabeth sighed, cursing her step-mother's lie-detection skills. "The professor's specialization of the subject is very specific," she said.

Helen raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Parapsychology," she murmured.

Helen froze for a moment. "Ah," she said, rather uneasily. "This is a psychic thing."

Annabeth tried to hide it, but she felt a lightning flash of hurt tear through her chest at Helen's tone; and words.

Back when Helen had first become a part of Chase family life, the 'psychic thing,' as she so eloquently put it, had been put out in the open almost immediately. She had reacted badly, to put it lightly. Over time, she had managed to move past it, but that slight unease had always been there since, and always would be.

But Annabeth swallowed and responded with her head high. "Yes," she said. "This is a psychic thing."

Helen sighed. "Is this really all that important to you?"

She nodded frantically.

Helen sighed once again. "I'll have a talk with your father."

[:::::::::]

Piper was about to kill Leo.

They were both sitting on separate chairs near each other, as they waited for the fax machine to whir to life.

And Leo kept tapping on his desk in a pattern that was annoyingly repetitive.

"What the hell is that?" she snapped out.

He grinned. "Morse code."

Piper gave him a look. "And what, exactly, are you saying?"

He shrugged. "I was trying to commune with any spirits in the room; telling them, 'hello, I am Leo and I am awesome,''" he said. "But here's a special message, just for you."

He tapped out something that Piper couldn't understand (her knowledge of morse code was limited to basically SOS) while grinning at her smugly.

Piper sighed, and slumped further into her seat.

"Aren't you even the least bit interested in what I just said to you?"

Leo grinned and his eyes twinkled with mischief as Piper took him in.

"No," she finally answered.

"Sure you aren't, chica."

[:::::::::]

Annabeth was tense that night at dinner.

Her jaw was clenched tight, which, if nothing else, made it exceedingly difficult to eat her pizza.

Her dad definitely picked up on it, but remained silent, shooting her wary looks every now and again over his meatlovers.

Annabeth wanted to talk to her father - wanted to reassure him that nothing was wrong; Helen hadn't yet had a chance to talk to him privately yet, though, and Annabeth wasn't going to risk bringing the subject of 'psychic school' up to him until he'd been at least partially talked down.

As she gathered up the boxes and napkins from the dinner to take into the kitchen bins, Helen cut her eyes in Annabeth's direction.

Her expression said, I'll talk to him now.

Annabeth gulped.

[:::::::::]

The clicking sounds of Piper hitting away at his keyboard made Leo wince, despite himself.

Every now and then he would hear the beautiful girl make a frustrated noise or a grunt of confusion, and had to suppress a snigger.

His keyboard was not of the average QWERTY design. It was a Dvorak, sometimes known as an Asset – and it was made for fast typing, perfect for a person like Leo, who spent at least eleven hours a day on his computer. The letters were placed differently to normal keys, however, and for someone used to the letters being in a certain place – someone like Piper – it would be exceedingly difficult to use.

It amused Leo to no end to watch the Beauty Queen struggle over something as simple as the contents of an email.

"Shut up," she hissed at him from over her shoulder, some sort of psychic sense (metaphorically speaking, of course – Leo was yet to entirely figure out Piper's power but it seemed to be some form of Persuasion) letting her know that he was laughing at her.

He shrugged, even though she couldn't see it, figuring that if she could sense him laughing, she could sense him shrugging, too. "I'm sorry, but watching this is way more amusing then working my way through backlogs of endless scientific reports," he said, holding up a huge stack with both hands for emphasis. "And that isn't even half of them."

Piper sighed. "I can't see why we couldn't just send out that email you sent Annabeth Chase to everyone. It was perfect: short, sweet, and to the point."

Leo rolled his eyes. "You heard Chiron," he said. "Each pitch has to be tailored to the exact needs of each Potential. We have to draw them in. A generic chain email is not going to do that."

Piper scowled. "You know that's over three-hundred kids to go through, right?"

"Well, you'd better keep typing then."

[:::::::::]

Annabeth knew the exact moment that Helen stopped dodging the matter with cleverly placed words and came straight out and told her dad what she was on about.

Frederic Chase let out a sound – it can only really be described as a roar – and Annabeth winced, her hands lifting up slightly as if to cover her ears.

Seriously, wow. If people hadn't heard that almost fifty miles away, then Annabeth would definitely be shocked.

The thud of angry footsteps told her that her dad was heading towards the kitchen; coming her way.

She tensed her shoulders and braced for the inevitable explosion.

"Annabeth Sophia Chase!" Frederic bellowed out, flinging the kitchen door wide open and puffing like he had just run a marathon. "What the hell is your stepmother going on about?"

That was when Annabeth knew that she had really made her father mad. It was never your stepmother, always my wife or Helen.

She gulped. "I got an email today, dad," she started off hesitantly. "These people want me to try out for their school."

"A school for psychics," her father spat out, disgust clear in his expression.

Something hot and ugly and red flared within Annabeth, trickling its way through her veins. "Yes, dad," she hissed. "A school for people like me."

Some indecipherable emotion flickered in his eyes and vanished simultaneously. "How did they even find you?"

Now that was actually a good question. One Annabeth definitely didn't know the answer to – not that she was going to admit that to her father. "They gave me a business card with their email address on it," she said. It wasn't a total lie, as that was probably what had happened. "I guess they have other psychics on their payroll – remember how mum always said each gift was unique and different? There are probably people out there whose psychic power is to sense other psychic powers."

Frederic gritted his teeth, blue eyes going dark. "You are not going to this school, and that is final."

"But it's not even really a school, it's a program!" Annabeth protested. "And these are just the tryouts, I might not even get in. Please, dad. Please."

She opened up her eyes so that they were big, pleading.

Frederic ran a hand through his dirty blonde curls, sighing. "I don't want you getting mixed up in this psychic stuff, Anna," he stated morosely. "After all, it did get your mother killed."

Annabeth felt like all the breath had been punched out of her. Not that she knew what that felt like, exactly, but she was making what she felt was a fair estimate.

"Dad," she said softly. "Mum didn't die because she was psychic. She died because the man that killed her was an idiot. And trying to keep me away from all this stuff doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be safe – for all you know, I could walk to school tomorrow morning and get hit by an out of control driver, or eaten by a zombie, or something."

Frederic's lips quirked up ever so slightly. "A zombie?"

She shrugged. "Hey, you never know – it could happen."

They fell silent for a moment, but it wasn't awkward.

"You're not going to let this go, are you," her father said. It was not a question.

Annabeth shook her head, and a few stray curls fell into her eyes. With a slight smile, her dad brushed them away and tucked them behind her ear, tugging on them before letting them go, the way he used to when she was little.

"You are so like your mother," he said. "Too like your mother. I can't stand to lose you like her."

"You won't."

He wiped his face down with one hand. "Fine," he sighed. "You can do these tryout things. But even if you get accepted, there are no guarantees that I'm going to let you be part of this program. That is something we will discuss at a later date." His dark blue eyes met her green ones. "Goodnight, Annabeth."

"Night, dad," she whispered.

[X]

"I knew it!" Cassandra's grin was as bright as a fireworks display. "I knew your dad would be cool with letting you do your psychic thing!"

Alisha snorted.

"Hey," Annabeth said before she remembered herself, "where's Helena?"

The moment those words left her lips, she remembered.

Aaron Darling would not live to see tomorrow morning.

[:::::::::]

Rachel Elizabeth Dare, codename ORACLE, designation RED, an agent of Project Olympia's side branch DELPHI, smiled brightly at the frumpy woman sitting at the desk in front of her.

"Hi!" she spoke louder than usual so that the receptionist could hear her through the plexiglass barrier that separated her desk off from the rest of the waiting room. "I'm here to pick up one of the boys?"

The fact that whoever ran the place felt it necessary to have a member of his staff safely enclosed behind shatter-proof acrylic glass – the same material police riot shields are made of – made Rachel extremely nervous, but she hid it admirably well behind another smile.

The woman sitting at the desk nodded and leant forwards, tapped a few things on her keyboard and clicked her mouse a few times, before leaning into a microphone and saying something.

A blaring, crackling noise came through the speakers, and it didn't even sound like English to Rachel.

However, after a few minutes, a reply crackled back, and the receptionist nodded. "He'll be out in a minute," she informed the girl in a paint splattered skirt-suit. "I wouldn't bother sitting down."

RED nodded. "Okay, sure."

A faint buzz came from down the hall, followed by another, and another. It took a moment for Rachel to figure out what she was hearing – the gates in the hall being unlocked and then opened.

Finally the small group – two men who seemed to be guards, or security, or something; and a dark-haired teenage boy – made their way into the waiting area.

Rachel attempted to straighten her wild mass of red hair hair and summoned a professional façade.

"Hello, Perseus," she said, holding out an envelope. "I've got an offer for you."

[:::::::::::::::]

i'm not sure if i'm going to continue this. i don't even know. yeah the characters are OOC and OOC Is Serious Buisness, but they have different backgrounds in this AU and that shows in their personality. I have plans if I ever decide to continue this but for now it is a oneshot to get me back into the swing of things, and I will now once again be focusing on Cursed Heart.


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